The core began to work on expanding with renewed vigour, its increased MP regeneration granting it newfound excitement. At the same time, the voices seemed to have more ideas than ever before, and it set to work testing out those ideas. First, and easiest to check was the idea of using the steel-head arrow with its Arrow Traps, focusing intently on the concept, in order to see what options it had with the trap.

Arrow Trap Upgrade DP Cost Replace Iron Arrows with Steel 1DP Increase Number of Arrows fired 3DP

Success! And it had two options to improve the arrow trap, at that. Unfortunately, the core would have to wait until something new wandered into the dungeon, before it could purchase any of these upgrades. The remainder of suggestions had to do with Dungeon Construction, or with specific ways of forming tunnels and rooms. First, though, it had to complete the two rooms it had started on.

Time passed, slowly, yet more productively than before, as the core carved out the next two rooms, starting with the one to the right of its second, collapsing room. This room, at the end of a tunnel which curved away even further to the right, it decided to carve into a rectangle, large and regular. It considered what to do with this room, and decided it would be a good place for a fight, meaning it would have to wait until it had its first monsters.

The fourth room, by contrast, curved back towards the entrance, almost butting up against the first corridor in places, and the core built it oblong and irregular, bulging in strange places, seeming almost as though it were a natural room. In order to maintain that impression, the core chose to leave behind a number of artificial, carved stalactites, and with an effort of will, stopped the transformation which had made the rest of its dungeon from carved stone from encroaching on this room.

While it wasn't sure what it would do with its newest creation, it was quite proud of its creativity, and hoped the variation would look nice, while also giving it the opportunity to swap up the use of traps. But, that would have to wait, as it was time to experiment, thanks to a simple fact.

While it worked, multiple animals had come into the dungeon, and the core was starting to become suspicious.

Material Absorbed DP Gained Boar x1 5DP Gained Sheep x3 8DP Gained Wolf x1 8DP Gained Badger x1 3DP Gained Steel-head arrow x6 3DP Gained

Clearly, someone was chasing these animals into the dungeon- only the sheep hadn't brought more arrows with it, and the third sheep had run away after the first two died, before re-entering and dying to the pit trap. The obvious culprit was the thief of course, who the voices had been sure was nice, but the core couldn't understand why she would do this. Maybe she wanted it to make more treasure?

Regardless, the dungeon had DP to spend now, so it set to work, purchasing reinforcement and construction, as well as both the upgrades for its arrow traps. Those had taken down most of the animals the thief had chased in, after all, so it couldn't hurt to make them stronger, right? It turned out that the increased arrows upgrade actually made the trap grow, from one slit in the wall to three, which would all fire when the trigger was pressed. That meant the upgrade has trippled the effectiveness of the trap!

On the other hand, Core Reinforcement had caused the gem that made up the core itself to be bracketed in metal, a thin band of copper surrounding the outer edge, giving it a much more striking look where it sat at the back of the second room. With dungeon construction purchased, however, it was time for the experimentation to begin.

First, with a moment of concentration, it moved its core to the rectangular room, and called up the construction options.

Constructions MP Cost Basic Stone Wall 1MP Basic Wooden Door 2MP Basic Iron Lock 1MP Small Wooden Chest 2MP Weak Iron Bars 4MP Weak Iron Barred Door 8MP Fill Room/Tunnel 2xCost

First, it tried applying the lock to its trapped chest, and a new mechanism formed on its latch, holding it shut. Hopefully that would distract intruders, and keep them from noticing the trap! Then, it braced itself for the next experiment.

The voices had warned it that this might be a bad idea, but seperating itself from the outside was too enticing to resist, and it attempted to build a wall blocking the entrance to the tunnel leading to its current core room. Instantly, the core knew the voices were right, and a harsh pain struck it to the depths of its being, before the wall it was attempting to construct burst into nothing, taking its MP with it as it did so.

The core spent some time simply resting to recover from that mistake, before attempting anything else. During that time, however, two of the ideas from the voices stood out to it, and it realized there was a perfect way it could combine them. Rather than just making a difficult to navigate tunnel, or disguising a door, couldn't it hide the entrance at the top of a chamber? And it had an easy disguise that most intruders wouldn't want to tear down if they noticed it, didn't it?

So thinking, it experimentally dug up, starting above the loose stones that came from the cave in trap, and found it could easily construct new spaces up here! Perhaps to validate the core's experimentation, it received a new message.

Hidden Passage Constructed! For constructing a hidden passage organically, the dungeon is rewarded with the Hidden Entrances advancement for free! New Triggers and Constructions are now available! If it has not been unlocked, the Stealth type is now unlocked!

The core practically glowed in pride, but focused on completing its task before it would check what it had earned. After digging a short distance up, it turned the tunnel away from the entrance to the crossroads room, before constructing a small, circular room, and moving its core once again, into this room. This time, it had no issues, and was sure it would be atleast somewhat safe here. Just in case, since the thief seemed to like his treasures, and maybe intruders would be less likely to try to hurt it if they were happy, it spent more mp to add a wooden chest, before checking its treasures to see what it could provide.

Treasure Grilled Meat: 2MP Fresh Fruit: 1MP Iron Sword: 2MP Gold Coin(x20): 1MP Carved Shell: 3MP Steel Sword: 5MP Steel Arrow(x5): 2MP Boar Leather: 2MP Mechanical Thieves Tools: 20MP

It seemed the things it had absorbed had added several new treasures. It started by adding 100 gold coins, and added another carved shell on top- it experimented here too, focusing on an image of the thief, to see if it could change what would appear, and its experiment was successful, the shell showing her crouched beneath a tree, bow drawn, as a deer grazed some distance away. The dungeon wondered whether it was a good idea to add this to its treasure, before deciding if it became an issue it would just do this with every intruder who was nice. Then noone could complain, right? Finally, it added two sets of steel arrows, and leaned a boar leather against the side of the chest- even rolled up, it was still too large to fit inside the chest, and it didn't want to repeat them embarasement of trying to add the sword. It considered adding the thieves tools, but it would have to completely fill its MP to add that, and that would drain it to zero.

It didn't want to repeat that experience.

On the other hand, several of the voices seemed to like the idea of the clockwork spyders, even if others didn't. It decided to try to keep track of which ones liked which options again, and see if it should pick its first monster yet.